LET YOURSELF BE MESSY!
Thoughts on messy action
Welcome to a new thing I’m doing where I ramble about random topics that pop into my head!
Fragile Confidence
I spent my whole life delaying my creative calling because I felt like everybody was above me. I had a fragile level of confidence that was easily shattered by seeing other artists, and then I would immediately be filled with inadequacy and doubt.
An old work colleague once told me that I need to know everything about everything before I take action, and it’s the most helpful criticism I’ve ever heard about myself (thanks Ben!). I was afraid of being seen as a beginner and looking like a fool. For example, I didn’t want to be seen making music unless I knew an absurd amount of music theory, otherwise someone might find out I’m a big fraud.
I felt that in order to give myself a creative label or title (writer, musician, poet, etc), I needed a certain threshold of knowledge and output first, but this is a lie. You are already the thing because the art dwells inside of you, and you are worthy as soon as you decide you are.
Messy Action
The fear of putting yourself out there, whether it’s a new thing or something you’ve done for a while, never truly goes away. We must move forward in the presence of our fears, because if we sit around waiting for them to go away, we’ll be literally waiting for the rest of our lives!
We must move in imperfection and give ourselves permission to be imperfect, because creative mastery happens in the messy middle of doing the thing. You have to go through it!
Yes, your output might suck in the beginning, but that is normal and human! My early poetry on Substack sucks, but sucking is the first stage of being good!
Move in your imperfection — it’s the only way to grow!
Highlight Reels
In a world where people only share the highlight reels of their lives, it can be hard to want to show yourself on the journey. When everybody seems to be at the top of the mountain, it’s extremely uncomfortable to show yourself out of breath and falling down as you climb.
But guess what? Everybody you look up to in any field has been at the same place you are, and the people who look like they have their lives together secretly feel like just as much of a hot mess as you do. We’re all figuring things out.
Life is not a performance! People want to see more realness, ESPECIALLY in this era of AI. And when you show your rawness, your failures, and the messy middle, not only does it make you more relatable, it’s also even more juicy once your growth is clearly visible.
You are safe to be seen growing publicly.
What are you afraid of?
Your goals are supposed to scare you a little bit.
What is the thing you’ve always wanted to do but haven’t started?
Allow yourself to be raw and fearless like a child. Children believe they can do ANYTHING. Somewhere along the way we lose that belief, but it never stopped being true.
How can you let yourself be messier? How can you move in imperfection?
I’d love to know!
☝️ Wisdom. Being afraid-until-I'm-not is one of my favorite things.
whewww yes, in the middle of this right now. yes to what you said about imperfection and AI, I thought about something I heard Rick Rubin say, that what we are drawn to in others' work is the imperfection because that is the mirror we're looking for :)